Michelle Hits the Mark

Would-be first lady wows 'em at DNC opener

Perhaps the wrong Obama is running for president.

With the exception of Sen. Ted Kennedy's speech Michelle Obam stole the show  Monday night - met in the morning with headlines that screamed: "She's a hit at convention" and "Showing the World Why She Makes Him Better."

A lot was as stake as millions tuned in to watch Michelle Obama's give the keynote speech during the opening night of the Democratic National Convention -- but the consensus among most pundits and media outlets was that the would-be first lady, poised and determined, delivered

Everyone was talking about her performance on such a big national stage.

 "Michelle and the girls were a homerun [sic] for Dems tonight," gushed Kathryn Jean Lopez in the National Review's "The Corner" blog.

- "One of the best, most moving, intimate, rousing, humble and beautiful speeches I've heard from a convention platform.  Maybe she  should be running for president," wrote The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan on "The Daily Dish":  

- "In her one big chance to convince the country that she is ready to be first lady, Michelle Obama checked the box in a major way," wrote Mark Halperin, who gave Obama an "A" .

Of course, not everyone loved Michelle's appearance. Michael Goodwin of the NY Daily News found the speech underwhelming and the attempts to reconcile Barack Obama's image with working-class voters a bore. "There was an element of pleading for acceptance that was almost sad," he wrote.  

Other critics suggested that Michelle's revamped image that even her opinions have been susceptible to a 180-degree turnaround from just a few months ago. Her speech lauding the merits of America, was a sea-change from the doom-and-gloom prognosis she gave the country just months ago. 

But most of America seemed to be disarmed by her speech, an ode to her family and an appeal to Democrats to unite.  

The result was that she not only humanized her husband but offered insight into her life as a down-to-earth woman. Obama faced immense pressure to reshape in one night what had taken months to coagulate: her unlikeable image.

Obama not only hit all of her talking points like health care and education but gave a commanding performance -- weaving in anecdotes about her life growing up on in Chicago's hardscrabble South Side, the struggles her working-class father faced and her desire to quit a high-paying gig at a law office to return to her community.

"All of us are driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won't do -- that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be," Obama said.

Contact Us